I quite forgot to include a voice recording last week! I’ve recorded this in one take so as not to prevaricate - apologies for any slurring, mumbling or hesitancy.
Hello and how has your week been?
This week I listened to The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell whose writing I love, it is a story of Italian nobility in the 16th century, of Lucrezia, daughter of Cosimo de’ Medicia, a young girl whose life is entirely contrived by her parents, her husband and court life. She is the bird in the gilded cage and I felt sympathy for her as I found myself immersed in wonderful descriptions of her tethered life. It actually gave me pause to reflect that I can sometimes feel a little trapped by circumstance and expectation; so long has my role been that of managing home, garden and the many threads of family life that it can feel inescapable, that I too am caged. Perhaps this feeling stems partly from the fact that we are living in the house I grew up in, despite having lived all over the world I have somehow been inescapably drawn back. I have to remind myself that, unlike Lucrezia, my life is out there for the taking and it is largely just a question of finding a willing dog/garden sitter that will afford me the freedom I sometimes crave. So, let me know if you fancy a stay in a shepherd hut, a wander round the hills with Gertie and fresh eggs!
In the Garden
I have little to say on the subject of gardening this week, because it has continued to be endlessly wet and I am a self confessed fair weather gardener. The garden itself of course marches on, every day there are more leaves, the odd fleck of blossom dotted amongst the branches of trees and the soil must be warming for the weeds are gathering pace!
Many projects feel just a little in limbo, I’m waiting for the perennials safely housed in the plastic palace to be sturdy enough to plant out, and for a delivery from the nursery for the remaining plants before we can get the ‘big empty border’ planted up. Before the end of the month I hope we’ll have had some brick edging laid for the new borders, and that it will feel as if progress has been made. Meanwhile I’m gently hatching a plan to get rid of the lawns in the front garden; to call them lawns is a bit of a stretch since they are largely moss and weed and I’m fondly imagining a mini meadow of wildflowers in its place. A little experience of wildflower seed and some brief research suggests that wildflower turf is frequently the most successful means to establishing this, I have yet to stumble across a price per metre, or indeed measure the front lawns, but I do think it would be very pretty, encourage more wildlife and even once cut in the autumn wouldn’t look any worse it currently does. I have yet to decide (or confer with husband).
Decision Making
Making decisions has never really been my forté, I’m inclined to either torture myself exploring every possibility or simply choose the option most likely to please others. In the 70’s as I grew up here there was a shoe shop in the next village; Mr Morris’ shop was known to us as ‘the fish shop’ because of the large tropical fish tank nestled amongst the towering green boxes of Clarke’s school shoes and black daps for PE (other than wellies I don’t really recall wearing much beyond these as a child). I can only imagine how my mother must have girded her loins for a trip there - she knowing that it would take me hours of unhappy prevarication to make a decision on which pair were just right, and that I would in all likelihood be in tears by the time we got home for I wasn’t sure I’d made the right decision. Sorry Mum!
I think it hails from a deep uncertainty about who I really am combined with a healthy imagination of all the people I could be. Mr Benn was always my favourite TV character and to this day I envy his ability to step from behind the curtain in a different outfit and embark upon an entirely new adventure. I am aware though that this hampers my progress in many realms, resulting in my feeling of being a jack of all trades, master of none. I have long tried to make peace with this, but society’s general validation of ‘the master’ and my natural inclination towards self doubt have worked together to skew my sense of worth.
In the way that these things happen (the frequency illusion) several things in the last week or so have made me question why I place so little value on my time and endeavours. Writing, pottery, photography, gardening; these are all pursuits from which ‘other’ people make their livings, yet I have always felt painfully uncomfortable about the prospect of earning money this way. Could I, like so many others on Substack, be paid for some of what I write? I tell myself I don’t write anything of value, am not teaching anything helpful, but I’ve begun to observe that much of what I truly enjoy reading (and pay for) may not tick these boxes either. I wonder how many novelists and memoir writers begin their work by asking how they can offer value to others?
Mud, Fire & Smoke
Last week’s smoking was largely successful and I’m pleased it all survived, I do though want to experiment more in ways to increase the tonal variation as some pieces were quite dark so I’m reading and researching how to go about this. I have a glaze firing currently the kiln, fingers firmly crossed my heart won’t sink as I open it up. I truly don’t enjoy the glazing process nearly as much as I do the smoking and this tells me the path I should pursue - there, a decision made! I’ve also been doing some hand building this week which I’ve very much enjoyed, it’s a much slower way of creating and a good way for me to resist rushing through things which can be my default. I’ve made a couple of pieces to experiment with in an upcoming Raku day, it is always a leap of faith to surrender one’s tender creations to an inferno but the results can be so magical.
And Finally
Needing to order some more moisturiser I found myself tempted by the idea of an elixir to tighten my inevitably sagging facial skin. On the whole I believe in simplicity in skincare, using very few products, but treated myself on this occasion. I was more than a little surprised by the contents of the little amber bottle but feel almost certain that Pycnogenol is simply marketing guff for what I imagine can only be the menstrual blood of virgin unicorns! Let’s see if it does anything more than make me smile at the thought of that…although now I’m wondering if unicorns are ever anything but virgin for surely they would procreate magically?
Thank you for reading, and heartfelt thanks to those of you who like, comment and reply to my words. I truly appreciate it.
With love, Vx
Really loved hearing you read this x
Mum still has the weights from it I think! X